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A case study on journalistic courage

Larry Kramer and “1,112 and Counting”: The letter that helped start an activist movement

By Leigh Beeson

McGill Fellow, 2016

Larry Kramer journalism case study 1

Introduction

Depending on whom you ask, Larry Kramer may or may not qualify as a journalist. The

New York Times frequently featured Kramer’s op-eds during the HIV/AIDS crisis, but he is just as likely to be the subject of an interview or story as he is to be the person reporting it.i He’s a

writer, a rights activist, and a playwright known for the Oscar-nominated film Women in

Love, award-winning play-turned-HBO-movie , and the controversial novel

Faggots that details a gay man’s struggle to find love in 1970s .ii His novel’s

detailed account of the gay sex scene made him into “something of a persona non grata,” in part

because Kramer appeared to rain on the parade that was the gay community’s sexual liberation.iii

Although panned at the time by some in the gay community, the novel ultimately became a best

seller that darkly foretold the impending mass causalities wrought by HIV/AIDS when the lead

character warns his lover to change his ways “before you fuck yourself to death.”iv

Perhaps most importantly, though, Kramer is a revolutionary, one of the loudest voices calling the government and public to account for its inaction when a mysterious bundle of illnesses started appearing first in the gay community, then in hemophiliacs and people given blood transfusions during surgery, and finally the straight general population. He helped found

two groups, ’s Health Crisis (GMHC) and ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash

Power), that were instrumental in helping those afflicted by HIV/AIDS during the onset of the

and in “bringing drugs to market that now make it possible for millions of HIV-

positive people to live reasonably normal lives.”v Kramer was a “biblical figure, the Jeremiah if not the Moses of the AIDS struggle,”vi but his condemnation of the promiscuity of other gay men

at a time when many homosexuals placed great value on sexual expression and freedom put him

at odds with the prevailing culture.vii Larry Kramer journalism case study 2

After learning of the new mysterious virus that was rapidly killing off the community

surrounding him, Kramer became one of the first people to publicly and loudly ask why no one

was doing anything to help those afflicted by the disease. In what is now known as a defining moment in the rise of HIV/AIDS awareness and activism, Kramer’s letter “1,112 and Counting,” published in March 1983 in the , arguably the most notable gay newspaper at the time, thrust the disease into the spotlight, warning readers that “our continued existence as gay men upon the face of this earth is at stake. Unless we fight for our lives, we shall die.”viii It

wasn’t Kramer’s first time writing an op-ed for a newspaper, but “1,112 and Counting” was

possibly his most influential, the equivalent of throwing a “hand grenade into the foxhole of

denial where most gay men in the United States had been sitting out the epidemic,” according to

journalist .ix In his best-selling history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic And the Band

Played On, Shilts further describes Kramer’s piece as “inarguably one of the most influential

works of advocacy journalism of the decade.”x

Media coverage, or lack thereof, in the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic

It's hard to imagine that the national response to the emergence of AIDS ranged from indifference to hostility. But that's exactly what happened when gay men in 1981 began dying of a strange array of opportunistic infections. — David J. Jefferson, May 14, 2006xi

When the virus now known as HIV first started making people sick and AIDS started

killing them, no one—including the gay community that was beginning to be ravaged by the

disease—seemed to care.xii The Centers for Disease Control published its first report in June

1981, documenting cases of a rare form of pneumonia previously unheard of in otherwise

healthy populations that had started killing gay men.xiii So as to not offend anyone’s moral Larry Kramer journalism case study 3

sensibilities, the headline of the report, published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly

Report, didn’t reference and the report itself was buried inside the issue rather

than on the front page.xiv The following month, the CDC reported cases of Kaposi’s sarcoma, a

cancer that causes red-purplish patches to grow on the skin and that was most commonly seen in

older men of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean descent,xv in addition to more cases of the

surprisingly deadly pneumonia in gay men “in the driest possible prose.”xvi

The , , , and the San Francisco

Chronicle all ran stories,xvii but the articles were exceedingly cautious, with The New York Times

reporting that people outside the homosexual population weren’t at risk and that there was likely

an environmental factor at play and there was reason to believe it was not a contagious

illness.xviii “This day in the limelight, however, was the most attention the new epidemic would

receive for the next year…the outbreak faded from newsprint and became an item of interest

largely to gay men.”xix Media lost interest in the story despite the fact that by the end of the year,

270 gay men were officially reported as being immunodeficient and 121 of them were dead.xx

Even in the early days of the epidemic, there were researchers who believed that maybe the

group of illnesses were caused by an infectious agent and that maybe that infectious agent was a

contagious virus, but for the most part, the federal government and the media played it safe,

preferring to keep the public calm as it painfully slowly sorted things out.xxi

At best, the media were neglectful in their approach, with The New York Times featuring under a dozen stories in 1981 and 1982 on what people were calling “gay cancer” and the Wall

Street Journal only deigning to cover the exponentially increasing threat to public health after straight victims were discovered.xxii As Shilts phrased it, “the gay plague got covered only because it finally had struck people who counted, people who were not homosexuals.”xxiii At Larry Kramer journalism case study 4

worst, they were a key part of the problem, being at least partly to blame for the slow response

time both within the communities being decimated by the mysterious illness and in the

communities that had the political clout to actually do something about it. The New York Native,

for instance, beat the June 5, 1981, MMWR report on the new gay cancer with a piece published

in mid-May that the public health department said the claims of a dangerous new killer disease

among gays were “unfounded.”xxiv Larry Kramer, however, was immediately alarmed and quickly got a group of supporters together, laying the foundation for GMHC, officially founded in 1982.xxv The group created a hotline—the first of its kind—to help people facing the newly

CDC-declared epidemic, distributed informative pamphlets, and created a program that paired

sick men with people who could help them in their day-to-day lives.xxvi But that wasn’t enough

for Kramer.

He went back and forth with opponents about what the gay community needed to do in

Native op-eds during the early outbreak period and he harassed The New York Times and the

mayor of New York City’s office, but for the most part, no one really seemed to be listening.xxvii

His militant approach may have been to blame. He “condemns what he sees as gay men’s

irresponsible promiscuity, but in so doing he provokes and offends the constituency—other gay

men—whose support he is supposedly soliciting.”xxviii Kramer himself characterizes the angry response to his letters to the editor as backlash to his views on gay promiscuity.xxix “It was very

obvious what was causing it, and I said that if you had a brain, you should start cooling it. And

that made a lot of enemies,” Kramer said in the 30th anniversary issue of New York Magazine.xxx

With those first few letters, though, Kramer was just getting started.

“1,112 and Counting” and the choices Larry Kramer made in publishing it Larry Kramer journalism case study 5

If this article doesn't scare the shit out of you, we're in real trouble. If this article doesn't rouse you to anger, fury, rage, and action, gay men may have no future on this earth. Our continued existence depends on just how angry you can get. — Larry Kramer, New York Native Issue 59, March 14-27, 1983xxxi

Tired of waiting on the government and media to act, Kramer submitted “1,112 and

Counting” to the New York Native. Making it clear that his writing was personal and not on

behalf of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis group, Kramer warned readers of the more than 1,000

cases (and growing) of AIDS; that health care workers were baffled and didn’t know how to treat

the patients coming down with the illness, let alone save them from a terrifyingly gruesome

death in most cases; and that unless they made radical changes to their lifestyles, the entire gay

community might go up in flames.xxxii He attacked the government, specifically New York

City’s mayor, for its inaction, saying that no other community would’ve been forced to suffer for

two years, to wait and watch as more and more of its members became ill and died. Kramer

ended the first portion of his letter with a damning proclamation, saying that Mayor ’s silence regarding the AIDS epidemic, much like that of President , was literally killing gays.xxxiii Leadership and funding from Washington, D.C., was minimal, and without direction or money, federal agencies floundered in the growing number of AIDS cases, not knowing what to do.xxxiv “AIDS was from the very beginning a political crisis,” and the government’s reluctance to address it was costing lives.xxxv

Instead of seeing the gay community as the first victims of a plague that would inevitably

strike not only our nation but also the entire world, government leaders questioned whether the

disease was God’s punishment for the sin of homosexuality.xxxvi “We are being blamed for

AIDS, for this epidemic,” Kramer wrote. “We are being called its perpetrators, through our blood, through our ‘promiscuity,’ through just being the gay men so much of the rest of the Larry Kramer journalism case study 6

world has learned to hate.”xxxvii Interestingly, Kramer himself was guilty of reducing their plight

to the issue of promiscuity to some extent, and the argument behind the letter itself was that the

emphasis on sex with multiple partners, something that was incredibly common during the

sexual liberation days, was going to have to shift.xxxviii In fact, the overwhelmingly negative response to “1,112 and Counting” showed how Kramer was perceived as “alarmist” and “sex- negative,” with some people claiming that he was using the forum to emphasize how foretold the epidemic.xxxix

The government wasn’t the sole object of Kramer’s wrath. He also went after the media, including the prominent gay publications of the time. Though Kramer specifically named the

Advocate, The New York Times, and , but he broadly painted the “straight press” as being more or less uninterested in what was happening and maligned the gay press as

“useless,” asking how the community can expect to get outsiders to care about the epidemic when its own community papers weren’t even bothering to really cover it.xl Kramer does make a

notable exception of the New York Native, which one could argue was more related to his desire

to continue using it as a personal platform to spread the word about AIDS than an actual belief

that the Native was doing a good job covering it. As noted in a report from Princeton Survey

Research Associates International and the Kaiser Family Foundation, “media coverage of

HIV/AIDS was never dominated by stories about gay men,” despite gay men being the people

most at risk of contracting the deadly disease.xli Efforts by activists to get the mainstream media

onboard with covering the epidemic resulted in sporadic coverage at best, and most of the major

HIV/AIDS stories in the 1980s were the result of business/science breakthroughs, such as the

clinical trials and eventual sale of the life-saving drug AZT and the announcement that superstar Larry Kramer journalism case study 7

Rock Hudson was a gay man with HIV.xlii Otherwise, as Kramer declared, the media didn’t

really seem interested.

Perhaps most surprisingly, or not surprising at all depending on how much one knows

about Kramer, he attacked members of the gay community itself in his article—those who don’t

give money to gay charities, those who remained in the closet, those who were more concerned

with their sex lives than with the virus that is coming for their lives, but most of all those who

knew what was going on and still refused to act. “I am very sick and saddened by every gay man

who does not get behind this issue totally and with commitment - to fight for his life,” Kramer

wrote.xliii In his typical blunt style, he told those who refused to make noise out of fear of

societal repercussions from the straight majority that they could “march off now to the gas

chambers,” a message intentionally invoking the horror of to help clarify for

readers just how dire of a situation gay men were in.xliv Kramer was outraged by the lack of

outrage at what he rightly saw as a disease that had the potential to wipe out entire communities.

Unfortunately, many in the gay community would dismiss “1,112 and Counting” as just another

letter from that “nasty prude” Larry Kramer.xlv His simply wasn’t a popular opinion at the time.

Most importantly, Kramer ended his 5,000-word letter with an appeal: “I don't want to die. I can only assume you don't want to die. Can we fight together?”xlvi He told readers what

community groups were doing to demand accountability from government officials; he explained

that the AIDS Network was learning civil disobedience tactics (sit-ins, traffic tie-ups, etc.) to get

people’s attention; and he asked readers for their help and support. Underscoring the seriousness

of what he was asking volunteers to commit to, Kramer told them, “All participants must be

prepared to be arrested.”xlvii He begged readers to care, to know that this disease—if by some

miracle it hadn’t touched them yet—would kill them or people they loved. “I know that unless I Larry Kramer journalism case study 8 fight with every ounce of my energy I will hate myself. I hope, I pray, I implore you to feel the same,” Kramer wrote.xlviii

Kramer knew his message likely wouldn’t be well received; he knew because he was aware that much of the gay community didn’t like him, viewed him as a traitor to even.xlix He certainly didn’t have to subject himself to public ridicule—no one made him write the letter, let alone publish it in one of the most prominent gay newspapers of the time. But he felt he had a duty to act. A paper published in the African Journal of AIDS Research almost 30 years after the first cases of HIV/AIDS were reported questions whether there is a place for advocacy in journalism when it comes to topics like AIDS.l The code of ethics from the Society of Professional Journalists offers four guiding principles for journalists: “seek truth and report it,” “minimize harm,” “act independently,” and “be accountable and transparent.”li Under the first tenet, the organization suggests that advocacy and commentary be labeled.lii In Kramer’s case, “1,112 and Counting” did appear as a letter, and it should have, as it wasn’t strictly impartial journalism.

But what exactly constitutes advocacy journalism? Given the moral undertones of the

1980s political climateliii and the conflation of “sex and morality” the AIDS epidemic presented,liv it wouldn’t have been surprising for the public to respond negatively if they perceived media coverage as accepting or even advocating homosexuality. However, reluctance to cover a disease epidemic that killed tens of thousands of people within a decade isn’t a display of moral integrity, if that’s what news editors were going for; it’s a dereliction of duty. Despite pleas from the gay community, the media largely refused to cover the illness when it was first discovered and even after it started killing significantly more people than the Legionnaire’s outbreak the media were so eager to cover.lv But those getting Legionnaire’s disease weren’t gay Larry Kramer journalism case study 9

and those dying from AIDS were, and that made all the difference in terms of coverage

worthiness.lvi

Conclusion

It took activism, militant activism, to shake HIV/AIDS into the consciousness of

mainstream America. Larry Kramer just happened to be the activist brave enough to take the

brunt of the hatred from the straight, religious public and those within his own community. He

was the one who was willing to tell gay men what they didn’t want to hear: that they needed to

change how they were expressing their sexuality or they would be risking their lives. He was

willing to become even more of a pariah in the gay community if it meant he could potentially

save lives, if it meant reaching someone in the government who could put HIV/AIDS on the

agenda, if it meant getting the media to become partners in fighting this disease that wasn’t just a

concern for gay men but would soon be a concern to everyone. “Whether it was their goal or not, AIDS activists raised the bar for disease advocacy, showing the value of a tribe of committed men, women, and children who are willing to work—sometimes antagonistically—

with institutional and public officials,” and Larry Kramer was at the front of that activism when

the disease first started being recognized and continues to be a fighter for the cause to this day.lvii

Larry Kramer didn’t have to become an advocate for the cause, but it was a role he took

on wholeheartedly from the very beginning. In writing “1,112 and Counting,” Kramer

committed to that role in a very public, courageous (albeit somewhat caustic) way. He helped

mobilize a community that seemed paralyzed in the face of a deadly epidemic but unwilling to

change. “They’d made sex the principal plank in their platform. No one then thought it would

kill you,” Kramer said in an interview years later.lviii In his letter, Kramer called on the Larry Kramer journalism case study 10

government to explain why it wasn’t funding the studies and research necessary to battle this

disease; he called on hospitals that were no longer accepting HIV/AIDS patients and were using

waitlists for people who obviously wouldn’t last long enough to get off of them; he called on the

health care system that hadn’t educated health care providers on dealing with AIDS patients; and

he called on the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, in addition to

academic research journals and scientists looking to publish papers on the disease, to explain

why they were more focused on getting research credits than in distributing funding and getting

answers to what was going on.lix

To this day, Larry Kramer continues to fight against the disease that took so many loved

ones from him. He’s currently working on a novel he started back when the epidemic first

began.lx “I’m sort of haunted by the notion that I have been spared when everybody I know is dead,” Kramer said. “I’m one of the very few people left alive who knows everybody who’s been involved in the politics of this since the beginning. And I really feel I have this obligation to tell it.”lxi That sense of obligation, both to those who have died and to those who are just now

learning about the disease that threatened the extinction of the gay community and beyond, was

what drove Kramer to write “1,112 and Counting,” to put his neck and reputation on the line for

those who didn’t have the power or the courage to do so themselves. He pushed people to push

themselves, to stand up for themselves and their community at a time when many Americans

preferred to believe gays didn’t exist, because if they didn’t stand up for themselves, who would?

i Rand, Erin J. 2008. "An Inflammatory Fag and a Form: Larry Kramer, Polemics, and Rhetorical Agency." Quarterly Journal Of Speech 94, no. 3: 301. Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed March 12, 2017).

ii Pallardy, Richard. "Larry Kramer." Encyclopædia Britannica. March 04, 2016. Accessed March 12, 2017. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Larry-Kramer.

Larry Kramer journalism case study 11

iii Shilts, Randy. politics, people and the aids epidemic. New York: Penguin Books, 1988, p. 27. iv Ibid. v Green, Jesse. "4,000 Pages and Counting." NYMag.com. December 27, 2009. Accessed March 12, 2017. http://nymag.com/news/features/62887/. vi Green. “4,000 Pages and Counting.” http://nymag.com/news/features/62887/index1.html. vii Rand. “An Inflammatory Fag and a Queer Form.” p. 298; Dow, Bonnie J. 1994. "AIDS, Perspective By Incongruity, and Gay Identity in Larry Kramer's 1,112 and Counting." Communication Studies 45, 227. Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed March 12, 2017); Shilts. And the Band Played On. viii Kramer, Larry. “1,112 and Counting - A historic article that helped start the fight against AIDS.” UK Indymedia. March 5, 2003. Accessed March 12, 2017. https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/05/66488.html. - Taken from: Kramer, Larry. “1,112 and Counting - A historic article that helped start the fight against AIDS.” New York Native. Issue 59, March 14-27, 1983. ix Shilts. And the Band Played On, p. 244. x Shilts. And the Band Played On, p. 245. xi Jefferson, David J. "How AIDS changed America." Newsweek. May 14, 2006. Accessed March 12, 2017. http://www.newsweek.com/how-aids-changed-america-110511. xii Jefferson. “How AIDS changed America.” xiii Centers for Disease Control. June 5, 1981. " — Los Angeles." Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report: 30(21); 1-3. May 16, 2001. Accessed March 12, 2017. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/june_5.htm. xiv Shilts. And the Band Played On, p. 68. xv The American Cancer Society editorial content team. "What Is Kaposi Sarcoma?" American Cancer Society. February 9, 2016. Accessed March 12, 2017. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/kaposi-sarcoma/about/what-is-kaposi-sarcoma.html. xvi Shilts. And the Band Played On, p. 76. xvii “A Timeline of HIV/AIDS.” AIDS.gov. Accessed March 12, 2017. https://www.aids.gov/hiv- aids-basics/hiv-aids-101/aids-timeline/embed.html. Larry Kramer journalism case study 12

xviii Altman, Lawrence K. “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals.” The New York Times. July 3, 1981. Accessed March 12, 2017. http://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/03/us/rare-cancer-seen-in-41- homosexuals.html.

xix Shilts. And the Band Played On, p. 78.

xx “A Timeline of HIV/AIDS.”

xxi Shilts. And the Band Played On, p. 65, 84, 111-112.

xxii Jefferson. “How AIDS changed America”; Shilts. And the Band Played On, p. 126.

xxiii Shilts. And the Band Played On, p. 126.

xxiv Shilts. And the Band Played On, p. 67.

xxv “GMHC/HIV/AIDS Timeline.” GMHC - Fight Aids. Love Life. 2017. Accessed March 12, 2017. http://www.gmhc.org/about-us/gmhchivaids-timeline; Shilts. And the Band Played On, p. 90-91.

xxvi “GMHC/HIV/AIDS Timeline.”

xxvii Shilts. And the Band Played On, p. 109.

xxviii Rand. “An Inflammatory Fag and a Queer Form.” p. 307.

xxix Ed. Roshan, Maer. "Larry Kramer: Queer Conscience." NYMag.com: 30th Anniversary Issue. April 6, 1998. Accessed March 12, 2017. http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/2423/.

xxx Roshan. “Larry Kramer: Queer Conscience.”

xxxi Kramer. “1,112 and Counting.”

xxxii Ibid.

xxxiii Ibid.

xxxiv Richert, Lucas. 2009. "Reagan, regulation, and the FDA: The US Food and Drug Administration’s response to HIV/AIDS, 1980-90." Canadian Journal Of History 44, no. 3: 469. Historical Abstracts with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed March 12, 2017).

Larry Kramer journalism case study 13

xxxv Murphy, Timothy F. "The AIDS Epidemic @ 25: Between Memory and Activism." Bioethics Forum Essay: The Hastings Center. April 25, 2006. Accessed March 12, 2017. http://www.thehastingscenter.org/the-aids-epidemic-25-between-memory-and-activism/.

xxxvi Padamsee, Tasleem J. 2017. "The Politics of Prevention: Lessons from the Neglected History of US HIV/AIDS Policy." Journal Of Health Politics, Policy & Law 42, no. 1: 109-111. CINAHL, EBSCOhost (accessed March 12, 2017).

xxxvii Ibid.

xxxviii Dow. “AIDS, perspective by incongruity, and gay identity in Larry Kramer’s ‘1,112 and Counting.’” p. 228-229; Kramer. “1,112 and Counting.”

xxxix Shilts. And the Band Played On, p. 245.

xl Kramer. “1,112 and Counting.”

xli Brodie, Mollyann, Elizabeth Hamel, Lee Ann Brady, Jennifer Kates, and Drew E. Altman. 2004. "AIDS at 21: Media Coverage of the HIV Epidemic 1981-2002. (cover story)." Columbia Journalism Review: 5. MasterFILE Elite, EBSCOhost (accessed March 12, 2017).

xlii Swain, Kristen Alley. 2005. "Approaching the Quarter-Century Mark: AIDS Coverage and Research Decline as Infection Spreads." Critical Studies In Media Communication 22, no. 3: 258. Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed March 12, 2017).

xliii Kramer. “1,112 and Counting.”

xliv Ibid.

xlv Green. “4,000 Pages and Counting.” http://nymag.com/news/features/62887/index1.html

xlvi Kramer. “1,112 and Counting.”

xlvii Ibid.

xlviii Ibid.

xlix Shilts. And the Band Played On, p. 26-27.

l Krüger, F. 2005. “Ethical journalism in a time of AIDS.” African Journal Of AIDS Research, 4(2), 127. EBSCOhost (accessed March 12, 2017).

li “SPJ Code of Ethics.” SPJ Code of Ethics | Society of Professional Journalists. September 6, 2014. Accessed March 12, 2017. https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp. Larry Kramer journalism case study 14

lii Ibid. liii Padamsee. “The Politics of Prevention: Lessons from the Neglected History of US HIV/AIDS Policy.” 112. liv Murphy, Timothy F. “The AIDS Epidemic @ 25: Between Memory and Activism.” Bioethics Forum Essay: The Hastings Center. April 25, 2006. Accessed March 12, 2017. http://www.thehastingscenter.org/the-aids-epidemic-25-between-memory-and-activism/. lv Shilts. And the Band Played On, p. 143. lvi Ibid. lvii Murphy, Timothy F. “The AIDS Epidemic @ 25: Between Memory and Activism.” Bioethics Forum Essay: The Hastings Center. April 25, 2006. Accessed March 12, 2017. http://www.thehastingscenter.org/the-aids-epidemic-25-between-memory-and-activism/. lviii Roshan. “Larry Kramer: Queer Conscience.” lix Kramer. “1,112 and Counting.” lx Roshan. “Larry Kramer: Queer Conscience.” lxi Ibid.

Larry Kramer journalism case study 15

References

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seen-in-41-homosexuals.html.

American Cancer Society editorial content team. "What Is Kaposi Sarcoma?" American Cancer

Society. February 9, 2016. Accessed March 12, 2017.

https://www.cancer.org/cancer/kaposi-sarcoma/about/what-is-kaposi-sarcoma.html.

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Kramer, Larry. “1,112 and Counting - A historic article that helped start the fight against AIDS.”

UK Indymedia. March 5, 2003. Accessed March 12, 2017.

https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/05/66488.html.

- Taken from: Kramer, Larry. “1,112 and Counting - A historic article that helped start the fight

against AIDS.” New York Native. Issue 59, March 14-27, 1983.

Krüger, F. 2005. “Ethical journalism in a time of AIDS.” African Journal Of AIDS Research,

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Murphy, Timothy F. "The AIDS Epidemic @ 25: Between Memory and Activism." Bioethics

Forum Essay: The Hastings Center. April 25, 2006. Accessed March 12, 2017.

http://www.thehastingscenter.org/the-aids-epidemic-25-between-memory-and-activism/.

Padamsee, Tasleem J. 2017. "The Politics of Prevention: Lessons from the Neglected History of

US HIV/AIDS Policy." Journal Of Health Politics, Policy & Law 42, no. 1: 73-122.

CINAHL, EBSCOhost (accessed March 12, 2017).

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12, 2017. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Larry-Kramer.

Rand, Erin J. 2008. "An Inflammatory Fag and a Queer Form: Larry Kramer, Polemics, and

Rhetorical Agency." Quarterly Journal Of Speech 94, no. 3: 297-319. Communication &

Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed March 12, 2017).

Richert, Lucas. 2009. " Reagan, regulation, and the FDA: The US Food and Drug

Administration’s response to HIV/AIDS, 1980-90." Canadian Journal Of History 44, no.

3: 467-487. Historical Abstracts with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed March 12, 2017). Larry Kramer journalism case study 17

Ed. Roshan, Maer. "Larry Kramer: Queer Conscience." NYMag.com: 30th Anniversary Issue.

April 6, 1998. Accessed March 12, 2017.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/2423/.

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Penguin Books, 1988.

"SPJ Code of Ethics." SPJ Code of Ethics | Society of Professional Journalists. September 6,

2014. Accessed March 12, 2017. https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp.

Swain, Kristen Alley. 2005. "Approaching the Quarter-Century Mark: AIDS Coverage and

Research Decline as Infection Spreads." Critical Studies In Media Communication 22,

no. 3: 258-262. Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed March

12, 2017).

"A Timeline of HIV/AIDS." AIDS.gov. Accessed March 12, 2017. https://www.aids.gov/hiv-

aids-basics/hiv-aids-101/aids-timeline/embed.html.